


Maggots

by ScumbagSimon



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dead People, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, I'm so sorry, Maggots, Missing Scene, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25887955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScumbagSimon/pseuds/ScumbagSimon
Summary: Alone amongst rubble and fire, Five buries his family.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 128





	Maggots

There is no first thought, no words, no mantra repeating in his head as Five breaks through the fabric of time and emerges into the apocalypse.

It’s just fear.

His triumph, previously fostered by success, melts away. All around him is crushed stones and sporadic fires. Ash sprinkles down from the dirty gray sky, showing no signs of stopping. The air tastes dry and heavy, like death.

And he runs.

Backwards, the way he came, to the Academy. The words in his brain finally start working again, and he finds himself thinking that somehow, his family will be okay. They must be.

But when he arrives at the twisted iron gates, there is no one to be seen. Just more rubble, and more flame, and more ash.

His breath hitches in his throat like it’s being caught on a hook, and he stops running.

The world is destroyed, along with the only semblance of home Five has ever known.

“Ben!” he screams, because he can’t stay silent another second. “Vanya! Dad! Anyone!”

Nobody answers. 

He stares and then he turns, because he can’t bear to look at it any longer. Instead he looks at his fists, dry and ashy from the air, clenched until the knuckles are white. He feels for a handhold in the fabric of space and time, finds it, and then leans into his power like he’d practiced a million times.

And nothing happens. 

The air around his hands ripples, but it’s like trying to start an engine with no gasoline. The motor revs and then the moment is gone, fading into ash. He tries again, and again, his power fading faster each time. The wind stirs his hair and he finds himself yelling, “Come on!”

He’d known at the first attempt, but childish hope now melted away. His powers weren’t working. A horrible spike of realization oozed into his chest, and his eyes became hot and wet. “Shit,” he whispered, because he could think of nothing else to say.

He stared at his former home, and his knees hit the sidewalk.

What do you do when you’re alone in a destroyed world?

I couldn’t say. I can tell you what Five did, however. Five sat on his knees until they went numb, watching the fires tear into the skeleton of his home. It couldn’t be real. It simply couldn’t. He kept expecting to blink and find himself still at the dining table, but he knew it wouldn’t really happen. He was here, this was real, and the world was gone. 

He may have sat there for an hour. He wasn’t sure--time seemed blurred and wrong, like maybe he’d damaged it from traveling too far. After a while he sat, pain springing to his pebble-crusted knees. He knew he couldn’t sit there forever, and finally he managed to stand on shaky legs like a newborn deer, slipping between the twisted iron gates and into the academy.

He walked for a moment, then something caught his eye.

A black-gloved hand, sticking out of the rocks.

Probably in shock, he walked towards it, stumbling over bricks. It was holding something--a glass eye, dripped in blood. He didn’t think before he took it, swiping the blood away with a thumb. 

Then he remembered the body.

Again, childish hope took hold and he wondered if the person was alive. He peered around the rocks to their face and saw a blond man in his 30s, eyes closed, lips parted slightly, a streak of heavy red across his eyebrow, face gray with ash. Something about him was familiar, but that thought was so terrifying he shoved it down immediately. Five didn’t know this man. 

He turned away from the body and scanned his eyes over the ruins of his home. With a jolt he saw another man, with darker hair and darker skin, laying on his stomach and covered in rocks. The blood on his face was still wet, so Five reached out and shook his shoulders. His body was stiff.

Five’s legs gave out on him for a moment, but he stood and kept moving. A black woman lay with her eyes closed, peaceful if it were not for the eerie stillness. Her hair still moved in the wind.

One more body lay in the ruins, and this is the one that broke Five.

He was scrawny, clad in a black coat with sleeves that came down to the elbows. His wrist was exposed, and though it was covered in ash it was clearly visible as a black umbrella, surrounded by a perfect circle. 

Klaus’s eyes were open, but he was dead.

The features on the other bodies fit together like a puzzle. Luther, Diego, Allison, all adults now and dead as doornails, coated in ash like they’d been there forever, though it must have been only hours since they died, maybe even less. Who knows if they had lain there, struggling and alone in their last moments while Five cried at the gates.

Five fell back onto his heels, sitting on the ground, and dug a dirty knuckle in between his teeth. A sob built and broke like a dam, heavy tears dragging down his face and leaving clean streaks among the filth. He fell forward onto his elbows like he was praying, and maybe he was.

Unconsciously searching for comfort of any kind, Five’s hands reached out to grasp the rocks and broken glass, probably slicing open his palms. He didn’t care. His chest hurt with the force of his sobs violently escaping him, pulse heavy in his throat. His family was dead. They were dead and Five wasn’t there to die with them.

His sobs didn’t stop, after the first hour, but they slowed and diminished until they were sporadic and small as hiccups. He searched the ruins until the sun was gone, crying out until his voice faded into static. Ben and Vanya weren’t there, and he knew they’d never leave the others to rot. They were buried, maybe in the basement or maybe under one of the boulders, and Five wasn’t going to be able to find them.

Then the realization hit him.

His family was rotting.

The thought almost sent him to his knees again, but he locked his legs and swallowed down the half-sob and the tears and the snot. The ash had mixed with the saliva in his mouth and made a grayish paste.

He wetted his lips and found the courtyard.

It was relatively untouched by rubble, though like everything else it was dry as death. He reached down and scratched at the ground for a minute, but only succeeded in rubbing his fingertips raw. He needed a shovel.

Turns out the next best thing was a piece of rebar lying near Luther, and though it took up more dirt than his hands did, it was slow going, and he had to stop periodically to scrape the chunks of dry earth from the bottom of his little divot, slowly growing larger. He worked by the light of the fires, and it turns out the apocalypse at night was only slightly cooler than the day.

He worked until the skin on his hands was nearly gone, and the sun had begun to rise. Every muscle screamed, but his work wasn’t done. 

The hole was only a foot deep, but it would have to do.

He walked over to Klaus, deciding he was first. His eyes were open. Five couldn’t stand the way they watched him.

To his disgust and horror, flies had begun to crawl across his brothers’ face. Of course flies would survive the freaking apocalypse. He shooed them away with a wave of his hand, but they only came right back, buzzing and crawling, probably leaving maggots--

Five stumbled away and spat bile out of his mouth, feeling it burn the inside of his cheeks.

Klaus was heavy, but Five didn’t stop to take a break as he dragged him towards his grave. His coat kept getting caught on rocks.

Five arranged him with his arms crossed across his chest like an Egyptian mummy, thinking that he would enjoy the irony. He had two tattoos on his palm, saying HELLO and GOOD BYE. He kept his hands palm down.

Burying him was easier than digging the hole.

He marked his grave with his name spelled in pebbles. He dug Diego’s grave next.

It went faster after that, as he grew more skilled at digging and his muscles grew numb so the pain didn’t hold him back. At one point he woke up on the ground, though he didn’t remember falling asleep. He must have passed out. Diego’s grave was written with his name too, and a knife in hand. Luther was next, and his took longer. The grave was deeper and wider, and he was much heavier to drag. Five tried to pretend he didn’t see the flies passing in and out of his mouth, or the maggots wriggling near his stomach, but his vomit (bile) was testament to the fact that he would never forget it.

Allison was last, because she looked the most peaceful. All her wounds were buried, so he didn’t see them until he moved the ash and debris off her. It almost went well until he began to drag her to her grave, and her leg stayed behind, wriggling with hundreds of white worms.

Five cried and threw up again. His mouth tasted like blood. 

He didn’t look at Allison until all but her face was buried. He pushed the hair away from her face and covered her with dust and dirt and rocks, then wrote her name in pebbles, too. 

He stayed by their graves for months.

The world was gone, but Five’s world was gone too.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I'm sorry but I couldn't get this out of my head.
> 
> Also the fact that I have to wait two fucking years for season 3 is killing me.


End file.
